Prime Necessity
● USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service is, perhaps, the federal agency closest to our work at the Northwest Horticultural Council. We often work with its professionals over their entire careers, following them as issues dictate and as they serve either at various foreign posts or in Washington, D.C. Word comes this week that several are now retiring, including our FAS friends Deb Henke, Frank Lee, David Young, and Suzanne Hale.
● The convoluted nature of Russia’s mixed controlled/free economy is evidenced by a report issued in July by FAS. It appears the Russian Federation has approved a resolution establishing maximum allowable retail prices for certain types of food. “Socially important foodstuffs” of “prime necessity” encompass some 24 items: wheat, sugar, food salt, beef, pork, etc.,---and, apples. And it is so ordered in the land of the czars.
● I will be attending the United Fresh Produce Association’s Washington Public Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., the week of September 13. On Wednesday of that week, I have been asked by United to moderate a panel at the conference entitled “Getting Back to Real Science on Pesticide Residues. Along with two panelists from private industry (Cindy Jewell of California Giant Berry Farms, Inc., and David Barney of Bakkavor/England), Larry Elworth, chief agricultural counselor to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, is slated to paticipate and provide the views of the Obama Administartion. Earlier in his career Mr. Elworth worked for Pennsylvania’s apple industry and was The Packer’s “Apple Man of the Year” in 1991.
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